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Based on the sound of the name renewable, a person might
think that using only “renewable” energy is ideal–something we
should all strive to use exclusively. But there are lots of
energy sources that might be called “renewable,” and lots
applications for renewable energy. Clearly not all are equally
good. Perhaps we should examine the “Renewables are our savior,”
belief a little more closely.

Figure 1. World fuel consumption based on BP’s 2012 Statistical
Review of World Energy data.

1. Renewables that we have today won’t replace the
quantity of today’s fossil fuels, in any reasonable
timeframe.

Figure 1, above shows the distribution of fuels used since
1965.

Other renewables, which includes wind, solar, geothermal
and other categories of new renewables, in total amounts to 1.6%
of world energy supply in 2011, according to BP. The light blue
line is not very visible on Figure 1. (The blue line that is
visible at the top is “Nuclear.”)

Biofuels, which would include ethanol and other types of
biofuels, such as palm oil, amounts to 0.5% of world energy
supply. Its orange line is not very visible on the chart either.

Hydroelectric, shown in purple, has been around a long
time–since 1880 in the United States. It amounts to
6.4% of world energy supply. Its quantity is not growing very
much, because most of the good locations have already been
dammed.

In total, the three categories amount to 8.5% of world energy
supply. If growth continues at today’s rate, it will be a very
long time before renewable energy supply can be expected to
amount to more than 10% or 15% of world energy supply. We very
clearly cannot operate all the equipment we have today on this
quantity of energy. In fact, it is doubtful that we can even
cover the basics (food, water, and heat to keep from freezing)
for 7 billion people, with this quantity of energy.

2. If there is a huge collapse scenario, there is a
possibility that those who are in possession of renewable energy
technologies will be able to use these technologies to
their own benefit, when others do not have such
options.

There are many ways that today’s technologies may benefit a few
hundred thousand or a few million people who happen to have use
of them, for perhaps a few decades. A person who has a solar
panel and backup battery may be able to operate an electric
light, when no one else has one. A person living near a large
hydroelectric plant may expect to have electricity, when other
parts of the country do not. A person with a solar thermal hot
water heater may be able to have hot water, when others do
not.

There are of course limits to this. If the solar panel depends on
battery backup, the battery may wear out pretty quickly. We know
from the Second Law of Thermodynamics that everything degrades
over time. This includes solar panels, hydroelectric plants,
transmission wires, and even the solar thermal hot water heater.
So at most, the benefit of today’s technology is only likely to
last for a few generations, unless we are able to repeat making
new units.

There is considerable misunderstanding regarding the availability
of electricity from solar PV panels on roofs of houses. Usually,
these are operated with an inverter (to produce alternating current) and
connected to the electric grid. These units cannot be used if
there is an electrical outage in the area. With some rewiring,
the panels might be used on a stand-alone basis. On such a basis,
their use would be much more limited. They could only be used for
devices taking direct current, and only when the sun is shining
(unless backup batteries are available).

3. Renewables can’t be expected to operate on a
“stand-alone” basis, in any reasonable timeframe.

Each energy source is quite specialized. In the past, human
and animal labor played an important role in growing crops.
Charcoal made from wood was used in making a very limited amount
of metals and glass. It was possible to use traditional sources
of “renewable energy” to power society, in large part because
only a small amount of non-human and non-animal energy was
used in total. World population was 1 billion or less, not 7
billion. The standard of living was quite low.

In India today, the crops are grown primarily with human and
animal labor, two sources which could be considered “renewable”.

Figure 2. Workers harvesting rice in India. Photo taken by author
while visiting India in October 2012.

Even with this low standard of living, there is a substantial
fossil fuel contribution that would be difficult to eliminate.
The hand tools that workers use are sickles, which are made using
coal. India uses nitrogen fertilizer made using fossil fuel
(natural gas or coal) as well as irrigation pumps
(manufactured using fossil fuel, and fueled by diesel or
electricity). Only the electricity component would be fairly easy
to eliminate with today’s renewable energy (if scaled up
sufficiently).

Some seem to believe that renewables can power the world on a
stand-alone basis. The tiny quantity of renewable energy
currently available is, in and of itself, a huge limitation in
making this happen. Furthermore, today’s solar PV panels and wind
turbines are made and transported using fossil fuels, and most of
our transportation industry uses petroleum. In theory, we could
develop new devices that use only electricity, or create enough
biofuels to make a complete closed loop (devices made and
transported only with renewables). In practice, we have trillions
of dollars of cars, trucks, airplanes, and construction machinery
built to use oil. Because of this, a complete changeover to
renewables is at best decades away.

At this point, renewables are only “fossil fuel
extenders.” They operate within our current fossil fuel
system. They cannot be expected to reproduce themselves without
the benefit of fossil fuels.

4. Some renewables are economic in today’s world, while
others require subsidies.

There are clearly many types of renewable energy that are
economic in today’s world. Geothermal is economic in some
locations, because there is underground heat that can be used to
boil water to create electricity, or to heat homes directly.
Solar PV panels, together with back-up batteries, are often the
lowest-cost electricity source in remote locations (Figure 3,
below). This is why energy companies use them to provide power in
remote locations. Solar thermal energy is inexpensive for heating
swimming pools and for heating hot water in warmer climates.

Other renewables require subsidies. We usually think of
intermittent renewables, such as wind and solar PV panels, as
requiring subsidies. In fact, it is often difficult to tell how
much subsidy is truly required. Part of the subsidy comes in the
need for upgraded grid transmission; part of the subsidy comes
from the need to run fossil fuel back-up stations fewer hours and
ramp them up and down more often, making them wear out more
quickly; part of the subsidy comes in the form of increased
complexity, that makes it more difficult to maintain electricity
supply for the long run. There is no obvious reason to believe
that intermittent electricity will make the electric grid last
longer–if we are increasing the complexity of grid regulation at
the same time we are reaching limits of many types, adding more
intermittent renewables would seem to increase the likelihood of
early failure.

As long as there are renewable energy mandates for renewables,
and costs divided among many different payers (most of whom are
not reimbursed for their payments), it is hard to tell how much
today’s subsidy actually is. Energy return on energy invested
(EROEI) calculations of intermittent renewables do not look at
the whole system cost, including impacts on other players, so
overstate economic benefits and understate energy costs. In the
end, we do not have a good measure of how much mandated renewable
energy supplies cost us. Also, as we add more intermittent
renewables to the electric grid, the cost to other players can be
expected to escalate, making the understatement of costs (and
overstatement of EROEI) greater over time.

5. High-priced renewables help some of our problems, but
make others worse.

Inexpensive renewables–ones that require no subsidy or
mandate–are not a problem from a financial point of view. Many of
these can help the environment without providing economic
challenges.

The ones that tend to be problematic are ones that require
subsidies, especially when we have no idea how much the subsidy
really is. Figure 4, below, gives my view of how some of the
various limits we are reaching act together.

Figure 4. Author’s view of how various limits might work together
to produce different symptoms.

In my view, the limits we hit first are the limits on the outside
of the chart on Figure 4: financial issues and political issues.
(I introduce this chart in my post Our Energy Predicament
in Charts.) Disease susceptibility enters in, as
there are more unemployed and as the government finds it
necessary to cut back in financial programs for the poor and
unemployed.

If the price of renewable energy is high, it tends to exacerbate
the problems on the outside of this chart, even as it reduces CO2
contributions within the country, and reduces local pollution as
electricity is made. There may still be pollution issues
associated with making the rare earth metals that go into the wind
turbines or the solar panels, but these are conveniently in
China or another remote location. Making devices themselves also
requires fossil fuels–usually coal if the devices are imported
from China.

The way our current financial woes work out can be represented by
Figure 5, below:

High priced renewables tend to exacerbate the poor financial
situation of governments represented in Figure 5 in several ways:

Wage earners are even more penniless, thanks to the higher
cost of these renewables,

Companies tend to move their manufacturing to cheaper
locations (often using coal). This both reduces (a) taxes paid by
the company to the US government, and (b) wages paid to US
workers,

The government pays out more benefits to the unemployed
workers, and

The government pays out more in funds for subsidies.

In the end, when we look at world CO2 emissions, we discover that
they have in fact risen relative what would have been expected
prior to the Kyoto protocol (signed in 1997), rather than fallen,
as the emphasis on renewables grew (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Actual world carbon dioxide emissions from fossil
fuels, as shown in BP’s 2012 Statistical Review of World Energy.
Fitted line is expected trend in emissions, based on actual trend
in emissions from 1987-1997, equal to about 1.0% per year.

A major reason for emissions growth shown in Figure 6 seems to be
globalization. I wonder, though, if globalization was
pushed forward by the practice of looking at emissions within a
country’s own boundaries, while excluding emissions associated
with imported manufactured goods. The pushed developed countries
toward renewables, at the same time Asia increased market share
greatly through its use of coal.

6. Even if renewables look to be cheap and
non-intermittent, there still can be problems with their
use.

Unfortunately, nature doesn’t really provide us with a free
lunch. If we use growing plants–such as trees, corn, palm oil
trees, or other biomass, we start reaching limits as well. It is
very easy to cut down trees more quickly than they regrow. We
know from research by Sing Chew that deforestation was
already a problem 6,000 years ago, when there were only 20 million humans on earth. Deforestation
also leads to soil loss and erosion, which is also a huge
problem. Plowing of fields for crops of any kind in fact tends to
lead to soil loss.

Our whole ecological system, including animals and our climate
system, requires a balance among the various species. We are
being warned by scientist today that humans cannot simply
commandeer all of the natural resources for our own use.
Renewables often use natural resources that other species also
have a need for-especially biofuels, wood and biomass. Biologists
tell us we are in danger of reaching a tipping point due to
overly high use of “net primary productivity” (Barnosky and Haberi).

Conclusion

It truly would be convenient if nature had provided us with a
free lunch, in the form of renewables. At best, we were given
something that if we use wisely, can add a little to what we have
today. Renewables may, in fact, “save” some remnant of humanity,
if limits truly become a problem in the near future.

If renewables are truly to provide widespread benefit for the
world population as a whole (going beyond the measly 2% for
non-hydroelectric renewables), we need to develop renewable
energy supplies which are much lower in resource use than the
renewables we have today.1 Such lower resource use would have
several benefits:

1. It would reduce the pollution impacts of making the renewable
generating devices.
2. It would reduce the cost of making alternative energy.
3. It would improve the scalability of such renewables.
4. It would improve the EROEI of such renewables.

There seems to be widespread belief that an EROEI of 3 or 4 or 5
is “good enough” for renewables. The economy is showing signs
that our current cost of fuels is already way too high. What we
really need to do is bring our energy cost level
down. Thus, what we really need is renewable
energy sources that will reduce our average
energy cost and raise our average EROEI of
fuels.

Note:
[1] The name renewable unfortunately doesn’t equate to low
resource use. In some cases, such as solar and wind, it means
“front-ended fossil fuel resource” use. In other cases, such as
biofuels, it means “using soil, fresh water, and fossil fuels to
provide an oil substitute.”